Many golfers need and desire the exercise afforded by walking at least part of the way during a round of golf, but they find that if they walk all the way around the nine or eighteen holes that they play, it can range up to five hours, which is often tiring, especially when difficult terrain is encountered. If the golfer uses one of the conventional motorized golf carts to ride in across the golf course, the cart must be driven all the way around the course, eliminating the desired walking exercise. On the other hand, if the golfer chooses to walk around the course, either carrying his bag himself, normally weighing up to twenty kilograms, or applying it to one of the numerous available forms of bag carts, whether of the common hand push or pull type, or of a power driven (trolley) type, the golfer must also walk all the way around the course, since it is only the golfer's club bag that is transported by the cart.
The need for a collapsible golf cart, convertible between a walking-behind mode and a ride-on mode, which will allow a golfer to use the cart as a walking cart for some holes and as a riding cart for the remaining holes, was identified, and some solutions suggested, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,474,427; 5,346,028; 4,874,055; 4,848,504; 4,538,695; UK Patent GB2242404A; WO-2004/03K16-A1; EU Patent 0602300A1.
Most of the suggested solutions deal with merely changing the steering column inclination angle, such that it is inclined forwards for the pull-behind walking mode, or inclined rearwards for the more desired walk-behind mode. Such a big change of the steering column inclination angle, necessary to overcome the very different geometrical positions of the walk-behind mode and the ride-on mode, makes the inclined position difficult for steering, as large hand movements are required. Furthermore keeping the wheel base length constant in both modes makes it even more difficult to steer a long cart, which is a necessity for the ride-on mode, at the walk-behind mode.
Only two of the above-mentioned patents deal with changing the wheel base length when selecting between the ride-on and walk behind modes.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,848,504 suggests a detachable riding unit that can be detached from the trailing point on the drive unit and attached to a higher point on the steering column, clearing the ground behind the drive unit to the walking behind user. The suggested solution, however, requires coordination skills from the user, since the drive unit has only two wheels and the ground support located under the golf bag should be lifted from the ground during driving, along with steering the cart.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,474,427 discloses a motorized golf cart, with an extendible wheel base in which the front wheel assembly, having the steering member, is moved forward from the rear wheel assembly to extend the wheel base of the buggy, when selecting between walk-behind and ride-on modes. The drawbacks of the suggested solution, however, lie in their complexity, requiring a mechanism with sliding arms and mating gears. Furthermore, the user must take special action when mode selection is desired.